Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 13:15–end
Here, 1. Samuel departs in displeasure. Saul has set up for himself, and now he is left to himself: Samuel gat him from Gilgal (Sa1 13:15), and it does not appear that he either prayed with Saul or directed him. Yet in going up to Gibeah of Benjamin, which was Saul's city, he intimated that he had not quite abandoned him, but waited to do him a kindness another time. Or he went to the college of the prophets there, to pray for Saul when he did not think fit to pray with him. 2. Saul goes after him to Gibeah, and there musters his army, and finds his whole number to be but 600 men, Sa1 13:15, Sa1 13:16. Thus were they for their sin diminished and brought low. 3. The Philistines ravage the cou…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 1 Samuel 13:17
the spoilers came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies--ravaging through the three valleys which radiate from the uplands of Michmash to Ophrah on the north, through the pass of Beth-horon on the west, and down the ravines of Zeboim ("the hyÃ&brvbrnas"), towards the Ghor or Jordan valley on the east.
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 13:17
The spoilers came out - The Philistines, finding that the Israelites durst not hazard a battle, divided their army into three bands, and sent them in three different directions to pillage and destroy the country. Jonathan profited by this circumstance, and attacked the remains of the army at Michmash, as we shall see in the succeeding chapter, 1 Samuel 14 (note).
John Gill on 1 Samuel 13:18
And another company turned the way to Bethhoron,.... Of which name there were two cities, the upper and nether, and both in the tribe of Ephraim, of which see Joshua 16:3 this lay northwest from the camp of the Philistines at Michmash; eight miles from it, according to Bunting (d):
and another company turned to the way of the border, that looketh towards the valley of Zeboim, toward the wilderness; some take this to be the Zeboim which was destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah; and the wilderness, the wilderness of Jordan; but as that, so the valley in which it stood, was turned into a bituminous lake; this seems to be a city in the land of Benjamin, Nehemiah 11:34 near to which was a valley, a…
